We’re familiar with the acronym LGBTQIA, which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual. As we can also see, B for Bisexual is the third letter in the acronym. If bisexual identifying people are such a big part of the LGBTQIA community, why are they being told they don’t matter?
A survey conducted in January of 2017 and published in the The New York Times reported that 7% of millennials identify as being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. Yet, bisexual people are constantly being undermined. We’re either being lectured on how we’re just confused, and that we’ll find the right guy/girl soon enough or being asked by Straight Boys™ if we want a threesome.
Bisexual people are basically expected to stay single forever, because as soon as we get together with anyone, we’re instantly put in to a box. If a person starts a heterosexual relationship, bystanders assume they’ve figured their “confusion” out and are “straight again.” If a homosexual relationship commences, they’re gay/lesbian.
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation mentioned that when two people get into a relationship, they’re made to feel as if their sexual orientation no longer matters. Halsey also slammed this misconception with a Tweet reading “So if I’m dating a guy I’m straight, and if I date a woman, I’m a lesbian. The only way to be a #True bisexual is to date 2 people at once.”
Currently, I’m in a relationship with a man, but that doesn’t nullify the possibility that I might date a woman in the future. I mean, the whole premise of bisexuality is bi — as in, two, as in, is attracted to both women and men. (Of course, bisexual people can be attracted to people who identify outside the binary as well.)
Bisexuality is not a phase. It hurts when people assume that bisexuals are either experimenting or confused, and that we’ll eventually settle on being gay/lesbian or straight. An article published in i-D by Vice outlines the prejudice involved with calling bisexuality a phase. Many lesbian and gay people don’t take us seriously because we are able to experiment in heterosexual relationships. Thus, we’re not queer enough to be part of the LGBTQIA community.
Many gay and lesbian-identifying people also remind bisexuals that we can be straight passing, which they see as a privilege. By being able to fly under the radar, we are supposedly subject to less bullying and harassment from homophobes. This may be true, but as the i-D article points out, being able to pass for a straight person isn’t a clear-cut privilege, as it leads to more invisibility and less inclusivity from the LGBTQIA community.
There also plenty of Straight Boys™ in society — y’know, the kind who use triggered as a comeback — who thinks the world revolves around them. They make your bisexuality invalid by being a creep. From experience, when I came out to one of them, the first thing he said wasn’t “oh, congratulations!” or “that’s cool!” but “so, are you down for a threesome?”
Sure, there are plenty of bisexual people out there who love threesomes, and are maybe living with more than one partner. But many of us are monogamous and would prefer having sex with one person in a committed relationship. My sexuality isn’t something for you to fulfill your wildest fantasies with.
To summarize: bisexuality is not a phase, nor is it because we want to experiment with the same/opposite gender. Once we do end up in a committed relationship with another person, we still identify as bisexual. We do not magically convert to being gay/lesbian or straight. Lastly, please, for everyone’s sake, don’t be a Straight Boy™ and ask if we “wanna have a threesome.” It doesn’t do you any favours.
If you’ve read to the bottom of this piece on myths surround bisexuality and would like to know more about this or read up on other disproved myths, you can visit https://bisexual.org/ and do some exploring.
